Bad Habits

[reet hard]

Walsworth
Try this for your next few wagers:
Write down your reasons for betting the horse - sticking to proven form, rather than wishful thinking - and anakyse each bet after the race. to establish where you were right or wrong.
If all else fails, at least you'll begin to improve your reading of form.

[walsworth]

I am not the best reader of form to be honest, I find it difficult to read between the lines and invariably come to the conclusion that the favourite is a good thing!
Then I proceed to back the 2nd or 3rd fav looking for value, even laying the fav occasionally.

[reet hard]

I am not the best reader of form to be honest, I find it difficult to read between the lines and invariably come to the conclusion that the favourite is a good thing!
Then I proceed to back the 2nd or 3rd fav looking for value, even laying the fav occasionally.

With respect W, I'd suggest 'value' is a judgement call, and not something made lightly, until you've got properly got to grips with form.

[barjon]

With respect W, I'd suggest 'value' is a judgement call, and not something made lightly, until you've got properly got to grips with form.

Agree. Mind you, best on form is one thing, ready to run up to it is something else entirely

[reet hard]

Agree. Mind you, best on form is one thing, ready to run up to it is something else entirely

Aye, but it's all a part of the same puzzle, and not entirely independent, either.

[Grasshopper]

Having a grasp of the form book is a fundamental to successful betting, imo, and reet offers sound advice - it's very difficult to make the game pay, if you can't interpret form with a fair degree of accuracy. I think this is largely the reason why so many people I know have dabbled in horse-race betting, but eventually packed it in to concentrate on Football - they just can't get their head around the formbook......or at least, they don't have the inclination (or time) to familiarise themselves with it.

Walsworth, it may be best concentrating on higher-class races for a while. The back-form can usually be trusted to a greater extent, and better horses are generally more likely to give their running. Developing a feel for the form pre-and-post race in these better races, might help you better assimilate it for lower-class races.

[Colin Phillips]

Would that apply to the flat as well as jumps, Grass?

[Colin Phillips]

By the way ma friend are you enjoying the F1 season?

[Grasshopper]

I couldn’t say if it would apply equally to the Flat, Col bach, but as a general principle, I imagine it probably would.

F1 season is going great guns, though would have been marginally better if Verstappen hadn’t unnecessarily wiped-out Hamilton at the weekend.

[Desert Orchid]

Agree. Mind you, best on form is one thing, ready to run up to it is something else entirely

Nail.
Head.
Bang.

[Marb]

Does smoking dope improve your form study...

Honest question.. I just need a fresh pair of eyes sometimes.

[Desperate Dan]

I find a cup of tea works for me.

[barjon]

Does smoking dope improve your form study...

Honest question.. I just need a fresh pair of eyes sometimes.

Doesn’t make much difference other than you don’t give a fck if you’re wrong.

[walsworth]

Peace and Love.

[FiftyP]

Does smoking dope improve your form study...

Honest question.. I just need a fresh pair of eyes sometimes.

Most of my best days of betting have come after I've been awake at 3am looking at the form. Something about the middle of the night fog stops me from overthinking things.

[reet hard]

Quiet & most peaceful time of the day, for me.

[Desert Orchid]

I'm going through a spell which I'm trying to turn into a learning experience.

Having just moved into temporary rented accommodation while my new house is being built and, thanks to lies and incompetence on the part of various professional agencies, without internet for quite a while and, due to lack of space and time with everything going on, I've been unable to study the form.

I've therefore not been betting to any extent and have been curious to see if I can actually give it up.

I'm pretty sure I could. I'm on a medication until early December which precludes the intake of alcohol. Being a member of the Sunday Times Wine Club and used to my quarterly delivery of sumptuous Portuguese black reds, I thought I might find it difficult but not a bit of it. I'm used to going off drinking for Lent so I really just decided I'd be doing three successive Lents but it has been really easy.

I'm now wondering if I should bother going back to drinking when this is over.

I do struggle to let races like the Cambridgeshire go by, though.

So I've had a look at the race and punted a few based on gut instinct and recall of past form.

Majestic Dawn was very much on my radar for the same reasons as Wilsonl mentioned elsewhere but he's been taken out. Lucander is on a nice mark based on last year's race. I've put him up before this season and have to back him now. The chances are he's been trained for it. The other shortish one I've backed is Long Tradition. I've long been into Godolphins in big handicaps and it's interesting that they appear to have held this one back since establishing his handicap mark. The performance of Real World in the Hunt Cup remains deeply etched in my memory.

Chichester would have interested me at the big prices had I been able to access the form but his low draw now puts me off at the price.

The money for Anmaat might be a very strong tip in itself. Shadwells in handicaps is another source of interest to me.

But this is all without sitting down with all my paper form and studying paraphernalia. In other words, educated guesswork.

It remains to be seen whether it will bring me any success.

[walsworth]

I must admit that educated guesswork is always the way I approach those big handicaps!

Another bad habit that I am attempting to cure myself of is that of placing my bets too early and all at once. I think it has to be better to let the market develop before diving in. When I was working, betting early was often the only way that I could get on but now that I am retired there's no sense in it.

[walsworth]

I have widened my interest now to include handicaps of 8 to 10 runners in class 4, 5, & 6 races. I’m still using the same Excel sheet to compile a tissue, then compare my top three with the top three in the betting, then back the ones that closest to each other in price.
I have also started betting at one point win, two points place. It’s amazing how many come 4th but at the moment I seem to be following a slow but steady upward curve.
This does mean that in most cases I am betting the 2nd or 3rd fav at prices between 5/1 and 9/1, so was all the effort to produce that Excel sheet really worth it!

[2017diary]

I have widened my interest now to include handicaps of 8 to 10 runners in class 4, 5, & 6 races. I’m still using the same Excel sheet to compile a tissue, then compare my top three with the top three in the betting, then back the ones that closest to each other in price.
I have also started betting at one point win, two points place. It’s amazing how many come 4th but at the moment I seem to be following a slow but steady upward curve.
This does mean that in most cases I am betting the 2nd or 3rd fav at prices between 5/1 and 9/1, so was all the effort to produce that Excel sheet really worth it!

GL Walsworth, hope that your path to success will continue.